The Twilight Generation
by Tylec Asroc
Summary: [Roots] They are the Twilight Brigade: outcasts of The World gathered to try the devil's errand with the strength of numbers, and to find the Key that overturns all.
1. The Fairy with Black Wings

Introduction  
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Ovan, Shino and all related characters copyrighted by .hack Conglomerate.

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**T-H-E--T-W-I-L-I-G-H-T--G-E-N-E-R-A-T-I-O-N-**  
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_-written by Tylec Asroc-_

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_"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."_  
--Friedrich Nietzsche. The Gay Science.

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Years ago, the city of Mac Anu had been a sparkling desert oasis - a floating, Venician city of harbors and bridges built over rippling canals of life-giving water. Gentle gondolas floated leisurely through the river-streets and decorative banners strung across inns and cafes proclaimed every day a festival.

And then fire had broken loose, and the city was swept out of existence - consumed by the void as quickly as sand at the tide.

The CC-Corporation rebuilt the water Capital. Restoring it, was a situation never quite accomplished. The Son of the Goddess was now an orphaned child.

New Mac Anu withered. A city once brimming with rivers was now bisected by a single, trickling stream that gurgled out into a brown desert sea like sludge from a sewer ravine. A harsh sunlight burned away all cloud cover and baked the city brown and dry. Prized no more for its cool springs, the capital turned to industry. What remained of the original, elegant brickwork town was now overshadowed by industrial smokestacks and towers of steam pipes, bunched high and crooked like a sagging mountain of metal.

With the water, the people left as well. Twenty million adventurers, tradesmen and soldiers of fortune had once brought plunder, prosperity, and excitement to the hub city. Seeing the 'improved' capital, almost half of those prospectors and citizens had shook their heads with disgust and left the mismatched metal town for good, renewing no player accounts and bidding a final log off from The World.

_Twenty million,_ Haseo reminded himself, peeping around an alley corner into the teeming market district where buyers and traders flooded the open-air kiosks. _Imagine how much worse you'd have it if that many players were still on-line_. Slightly reassured, the diminutive multi-weapon puffed up his chest and plunged into the roaring crowd.

Fresh meat dunked into a tank of piranhas would have lasted longer; the reaction was instantaneous: faces turned and eyes darted at the prospective buyer, and traders rushed over each other to swarm his face with goods and offers.

"Hey, hey new guy, I got armor nice and cheap here!"  
"Oi, little man - I need an extra member for a party, c'mon!"  
"Hi, hi! Wanna trade with me? Pleeeze?"

In a far and concealed corner, his heart was palpitating at the rush of items and attention shoved in his face. Up close, Haseo gritted his teeth and shoved the crowds back. "Bug off," he hissed, elbowing his way through the parasites with the toughest sneer he could muster.

One bold little jerkwad was more determined than the rest, and grabbed him by the wrist, pulling his arm for attention like a call bell. Haseo spun. "What!?"

His assailant whimpered and hid behind open palms. The player used a child-type character model that met Haseo at the waist, with floppy, oversized armor that made a trembling rattle as he spoke. "Uh, I uh -"

That distant corner of Haseo was, for once, surging with a dark pleasure now that he was the intimidating one. He was level 20, dammit, and it was about time he garnered a little respect! "Well," Haseo growled, hands planted on hips.

"Ah, ah - " the kid's armor would fall off if it shook any faster. "I'm, I'm new here - do you know where the, the Chaos Gate is, Mister?"

_People,_ Haseo sneered. _Always so needy_. If they didn't have a problem for you to solve, they were out to make problems for you. "Down that street," he grunted, jerking his thumb towards a long, dead-end alley.

The little boy's face lit up in smiling excitement. "Oh, awesome! Thanks Mister!" With a wobbly spin he dashed down the wrong direction, armor bouncing like a collection of saucepans. Haseo rewarded himself with a smirk. "Dumb n00b."

A hand clamped over Haseo's shoulder and shoved him forward, sprawling on the brick ground. Haseo spun off his stomach, and gulped at the towering gorilla man.

"So how do you like bein' jerked around, you little smartass?" Haseo's jaw dropped. Before he could scuttle away, the man-mountain grabbed his collar and heaved him into the air, putting them eye-to-whimpering-eye. "Look atcha - only level twenty and you think you're the big man, pushin' around newcomers."

"It's, it's just a game," Haseo blurted, earning himself a tighter choke-hold and closer thrust towards the gorilla man's growling face.

"Next time I catch you in a field, n00b, your ass is mine." Warning imparted, he dropped his catch and stalked after the misguided newcomer. Haseo found himself in the dirt, not alone, but crowded by people gathered to inspect the little showdown. In a last-ditch effort to save his fleeting pride, Haseo yelled out,

"You think yer so high 'n mighty - but try pickin' on someone your own size, jerkwad!"

"I am," the gorilla man laughed back. "I'm level fourteen!"

Now only Haseo remained, panting so uncharacteristically quickly for a rude badass, surrounded by onlookers, each one a tall and daunting monolith. Scrabbled back on his butt, Haseo was the smallest of the lot. Murmurs danced over the crowd like an electrical current. Murmurs bubbled into smirks; smirks crowded out for giggles, and the pressure rose until the whole swarm collapsed into laughter! Everywhere he looked: people laughing at him, pointing hands at him and hooting at the stupid little Multi-weapon who'd been put in his place.

Holding back the sobs in his breath, Haseo grit his teeth and ran.

* * *

There was a statement made by the physical avatar a PC chose in The World.

The perfectly curved women who sashayed around in veils and low-cut skirts declared an inner beauty, a confidence and a power dormant in the real world but free here to explode and dazzle the virtual realm. Otherwise mild-mannered men boasted untold power and strength with broad, powerful arms and bare chests straining with muscles. Those who longed to be extraordinary chose the mutant animal classes: mighty centaurs, cool jaguar men and muscular lions with wild manes.

Head low, shoulders hunched, body constantly slumped and defeated, the character named Haseo was an anomaly in a world of runway models and bulked-up strongmen. All his avatar said, with its scrawny build, wispy albino hair and discoloured red eyes, was that he wanted to be left alone.

He'd run as far as the town square, where an underground well pumped a feeble quota of water into a decorative fountain; slumping over the rim and staring at his wasted reflection. _Should've spent more time browsing the character editor_, he thought, flicking his hated reflection into ripples. His black leather outfit had to be fastened tight with straps and buckles lest it fall off his muscleless limbs, and the only weaponry he could carry were puny little daggers. Yesterday a player had addressed him as "miss" again - probably something to do with the tight pants, and the shirt that showed off his bare midriff.

Haseo raised a fist and smashed his mirror image hard, hoping it would never restore. Again, his thoughts turned to quitting and starting fresh - scrap this measly PC and come back as someone big and strong. Then he could show all those jerkwads how it felt to be the little guy, shoved and tossed around . . .

But then, restarting meant that no one would recognize him, not even -

"Good afternoon, Haseo."

The voice made him jerk out of his funk and launch onto to his feet. "Shino!" he exclaimed, and then Haseo jumped again as the young, pink-haired woman wrapped her arms around his shoulders and drew him into a hug.

He freaked. "Whoa, Shino - !" Haseo broke the hold and pushed her away. "What the Hell! What're you doing?"

"Hmm? It's in the instruction manual, Haseo - to give someone a hug, you target them and press - "

"I don't care about that!" Haseo spazzed. "I mean - " He wanted to rant something about personal space and polite social distancing, but his mind was still looping over events The World transmitted from a first-person view: a girl, a pretty girl, had just given him his first hug.

"What was that for!?" He mentally kicked himself, yelling that out as if he'd been punched.

"Oh. Sorry, Haseo. I thought that was a polite way to greet a good friend." Her hair might have been a frivolous pink, but Shino was always so darn patient and collected. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I won't do it again if it upsets you."

"No!" he blurted. "I mean uh - " _Oh face the facts, buddy!_ "I mean, it's just dumb thing to do. We're playing a computer game; it's not like we were really touching or anything."

Her smile perked. "Well, if that's the case, you shouldn't have anything to blush over, Haseo."

_Blushing?_ He checked himself in the fountain water; game avatars couldn't blush could they??? "How did you know I was - " He stopped himself in the nick of time. "Well, I'm not." Shino had that knowing twinkle in her eye anyhow. _Just great._

The young woman named Shino had one clear message to deliver through her avatar: she was not a part of the crowd.

With the administrative sanctioning of player-killing, The World had evolved into a game obsessed with combat and the amassment of personal strength. Shino's character wore no armor and carried no bladed weapons - a short, spritely dress and stockings were all she took over her soft skin, and the black fairy wings tucked into the small of her back. When the game's most popular pastime was PKing, Shino had chosen to play as a Harvest - a white magic user specializing in healing and protective spells; a class that by design was meant to tend and befriend other characters.

"Anyway, I'm here like you asked," Haseo grumbled, trying to stress his inconvenience. "So what're we doing?" The flash-mail had given only meeting time and location - befittingly cryptic for the leaders of the mysterious Twilight Brigade.

Shino only smiled and folded her arms behind her back. "Well, right now, we're waiting for Ovan." _The guildmaster!_ That got a groan out of Haseo, who slouched over till he was wallowing on the cobblestone ground. "Can't we just go already?"

"He could be a while. If you'd like, we could go for a walk. Maybe you'd like to go through the market district?" Haseo grunted and turned away. Shino lost her smile. "Oh. I see. You've already been through the market district."

She knelt at his side but Haseo kept moping, and kept their eyes from meeting. _God, she just has to rub it in, doesn't she?_ It was like he had a big target painted on his forehead - 'Hey, I'm a loser - don't forget to remind me!'

Something pale brushed the edge of his vision. Haseo startled - Shino, her arms over his shoulders and her cheek in his hair, hushing his struggles away. "Oh, poor Haseo. I know it's hard, but hang in there. It's not all that bad, this world."

That far and concealed corner of Haseo was scrambling with activity - rifling through his drawers for the manual, mashing buttons and menus - trying to figure out how you took screenshots or short movies. He didn't want this to end, it couldn't!

"Haseo, were you listening to me?"

_Huh? Great, I spaced out._ And now Shino put a frown on her face and lifted his chin to keep their eyes together. "I was saying that if you want other players to respect you, you should stop slouching all the time." She smiled and ruffled his hair. "It's like you're painting yourself with a target."

There were prettier, chestier PCs to admire, but Haseo's eyes reserved themselves to only one. She was always there to console and cheer him up, even when he didn't want it. And she stuck with him no matter how moody he grew, like they were bound by string. Supportive, nurturing - there was something _motherly_ about her he found so desirable.

A tiny earthquake rippled his vision. "Ah," Shino smiled, rising to her feet. "Ovan's arrived."

Like the tremble of thunder before a bolt of lightning, one always heard Ovan before he arrived, and his walk suggested the approach of two. The first footstep was the dignified clop of a boot; the next blasted the ground with the tremor of plate armor and the rattling of chains. The quiet, scholarly stride and the crash of heavy metal. Younger players invariably turned their heads at the approach; higher level adventurers with experience on their side turned their weary faces away and did their best to ignore what was coming. A good majority simply bolted for a new area or tried to hide.

Ovan's shadow finally entered the courtyard, and every conversation, every walk stopped and skipped a tiny beat, registering the infamous guildmaster now scanning the crowds. Ovan's height was the first item that one registered - he was tall, and bent his head to pass through archways. He looked down on a crowd like a schoolmaster before children.

Like Shino, his clothing presented a puzzling variable into a land of plate-metal warriors and leather-hided brutes - a scholarly blue vest; spectacles; a posh scarf thrown around his neck. Ovan's dress conveyed intelligence, and intellect - but also a mind frazzled with genius eccentricity: blue hair was ruffled from days without sleep, while glasses tinted orange flickered on and off with reflective glare like faulty neon billboards. One could imagine Ovan the staggering survivor of an explosion, or an electric surge.

With so many cracks of disorder splintering through his avatar, the message every character took from Ovan was that this tall, imposing scholar was one poke away from exploding into a gun-totting maniac.

Ovan's spectacles scanned the crowds, fixing his target with the glare of twin suns, and his face broke into grin. Every player flinched; those who could, cast defense boosters and barrier spells. This was it, this was the Rapture!

_"Haseo,"_ Ovan's words were a baritone shiver up every player's spine. They could relax though - all he wanted was the wimpy Multi-weapon chick. Tensed bodies laxed, business moved on, and everyone could ignore Ovan step-crashing through the courtyard for the pair at the fountain.

Haseo scooted off his bottom and nodded his greetings, determined to play himself as unfazed as possible, although it creeped him out every time Ovan spoke his name with such thrill, like he was the most important person in the world. Shino moved to clear room at the fountain - she did not greet Ovan with a hug, but then neither would she tickle a sleeping grizzly bear. They nodded greetings.

"Forgive me," Ovan began. "Have I kept you waiting?"

Shino waved off the apology with a smile. "Yes, but just a little bit." Not for the first time, Haseo sensed a kind of coded message in their words. Their eyes held for a moment, looking each other over and smiling like dear friends. Haseo squirmed uncomfortably.

Taking a wide step from the fountain, Shino offered her spot to Ovan. "Thank you," he nodded, and propped his left arm on the stone rim, sending one last armor crash through the courtyard.

That, Haseo reflected, was the last impression one retained about Ovan - his left arm, immobilized and sealed inside an enormous iron cask.

Crazed theorists whispered all over the messageboards: it was an illegal giga-cannon and Ovan's hand inside wrapped around the detonation trigger. It was a customized, polygonal shield whose segments would fan out like wings to provide an unbreachable barrier. It was a modded mace, and the end hanging at his ankle held a pneumatic piston that would punch out for a long-range kill. All the conversations pulsed with the same beat: _hacked, hacked, hacked!_

Haseo stole another glance at the iron cylinder - propped on the fountain and supporting Ovan's weight for a change - wrapped in chains, sealed with a huge padlock, and roped by leather harness to Ovan's shoulder. To him, it called up creepy visions of a portable torture device, a spike-filled iron maiden shackled over the arm, its tip filling with slow drip of blood.

Suffice to say, he was eager to change topics. "So what's the deal - this it? Where's the other guild members?"

"Three is all we'll need for today's activities," Ovan explained. He paused, and behind their lenses, his eyes scanned Haseo up and down. "You're eager to leave. Trouble?"

Haseo had a big, fat 'nope' ready but Shino beat him to it. "Some players were picking on him in the market district." _Gee, thanks mom!_

"No surprise," Ovan nodded. "The way you slouch all the time it's like your -"

"- Painting yourself with a target! I get it, okay! Can we go already?"

Ovan frowned, but let the interruption pass. "Lead the way, Haseo." His free right arm gestured for the Multi-weapon to head up the line, and Haseo brushed by, swinging his arms and making a show of how tall he could walk!

"Oh my, what an assertive-looking Multi-weapon," Shino swooned. "I certainly wouldn't want to bother that player!"

She was just poking fun, but the crowds were actually drawing back as Haseo cut his path - although that was likely due to his company than any act of his own. Crazy one-armed Ovan and his half-crashing strides, and winged Shino, so frighteningly foreign - a fairy princess gliding through a rusted, mechanical city. Who wouldn't steer away from such otherworldly characters of such ill repute?

In The World, there were players who logged in for the sole purpose of collecting unusual or uncommon items. 'Rare Hunters', was the lingo, and Haseo had dug around, discovering it was a polite term for 'Nutjob'.

There was one girl posting on the messagebaords who collected only pink coloured items. Then there was the magic user out to collect every type of sword in The World, even though his class couldn't use bladed weapons. The list spiraled on in progressive insanity. Ovan and Shino were mature, well-spoken individuals, but they were also the two most legendary Rare Hunters in history - and therefore, the two biggest wackjobs in The World.

They were searching for the Key of the Twilight ...

The Key. The Holy Grail. The Philosopher's Stone: A legendary, one-of-a-kind item that would put the game on God-mode. Edit your stats at will, use any item or spell regardless of character class; even modify the physical construct - rumors abounded that the Key of the Twilight would give you ultimate power!

Of course, Ovan couldn't say what the Key looked like; in fact, no one could prove the Key actually existed. Because no one had ever obtained, used, or even seen the thing. But their Twilight Brigade was ready to change all that - a guild of like-minded players with that same insane faith in a digital myth, gathered to try the Devil's Errand with the strength of numbers.

Haseo was their newest recruit. Of course, he didn't believe any of this Ultimate Item crap - not a wink of it. Joining the guild was personal.

Ovan, Shino. Each in turn had rescued him from being beaten, mugged and bumped off by PKs. And they offered him a place in their guild. A home.

They were the first people who didn't treat him like crap - who weren't sucking up to him for items, or trying to wheedle information out of him. Ovan and Shino ... he genuinely believed they just wanted to be with him. And he would never, ever admit that he also wanted to be with them.

"So what're we doing today anyway - new tip to check out? Or is this another training session?" Ovan was okay and all, but get him talking about the Key and he started gushing all this spiritual and metaphysical philosophy - _'The key defies the set rules of the game, so can it really exist? And if so, is it really defying the rules, or fulfilling them?'_ - like finding a video game item was akin to finding God. "Got some more zen wisdom I'm supposed to learn?"

"Only what you repeat to us over and over, Haseo: that this is a game. So, logically, we should enjoy it, correct?"

"You mean - "

"There won't be any guild politics or prophecies for today, Haseo. We are going on a dungeon run."

Dark and concealed Haseo was pumping his fist and screaming 'yes, yes!' like a little fangirl. In The World, he merely shrugged. "Your call."

The march across town had taken them to a sheltered vestibule with cathedral windows. Inside rested the city's Chaos Gate, a mass of bubbling energy contained within a frame of spinning, golden rings. A teleportation portal.

Ovan gave the landing coordinates. "**Delta server.** The Keywords are **Lost, Ark, Raiders.**"

Horizontal, Vertical, Dimensional. Haseo pinged the entry-words and readied his daggers, grinning as his data dissolved into a sphere of pure energy, and blasted off to an adventure!

* * *


	2. The Scholar with the Shackled Arm

Touching down as globes of light, Shino, Ovan, and then Haseo re-materialized at an identical portal, this one planted in the heart of a lush rainforest. Birds hooted and water rushed deep within the trees. Haseo was bouncing on the spot, so pepped he forgot to play the cool badass. "All right, let's go, let's go!" Last to enter, the multi-weapon was first crashing through the trees, eager as a puppy to sniff out the dungeon entrance. Ovan and Shino exchanged smiles - _youth!_ - and proceeded at a more leisurely pace.

A stone archway - Haseo found his mark embedded in a mound of earth gripped by a black and sinister tree. Roots thick with age coiled over the entryway like wooden serpents; cold air and darkness exhaled from the jungle tomb. Haseo squatted in the doorway and squinted inside, bubbling with guesses at the monster count, or the treasures he would find. "I found it, Shino! Hey - Ovan!" Haseo turned, and jerked back from a gun barrel.

Ovan, his left arm a pillar, his face muffled under scarf and glasses, his shotgun pressing the multi-weapon to the earthy wall. The needlenose bayonet drew tiny circles at Haseo's nose. "Don't move, Haseo." And the boy couldn't - his mind was trapped in a looping feed - how many other players had claimed him as a friend before taking him for a kill?

"Turn around, Haseo." He was obedient to every word, he knew the routine - face away; weapons down while they bound and gagged you with paralysis spells. _It's only a game, it's only a game_ - but Haseo's controller shivered with force feedback as Ovan's blade traced imperceptible circles over his back. A thrust and a squelch of flesh.

"Take a look, Haseo." _Oh God!_ He'd never pegged the man a sadist! You couldn't feel the pain, but they could make you watch blood dribble out wounds and off knives. Haseo turned meekly, getting a facefull of the largest tarantula he'd ever seen. "Blah!"

Ovan flipped his gun skyward to examine the skewered monster himself. "Mm-mm," he frowned. "Level 10. Parasite class."

"You need to be careful running through jungle areas," Shino cautioned, reaching on tiptoes to brush an arachnid from Ovan's shoulder. "If you don't catch them quickly, they'll drain your health dry."

"You've found the dungeon," Ovan noted. "Let's proceed."

"Right. Right." God, he felt so stupid, though not entirely unjustified: Ovan's character was a steam gunner, employing bladed shotguns, rifles and chain-guns to attack at any distance: shooting from a range, stabbing up close; steam gunners left no exposed weakness. In a word, that was Ovan - flawless, impenetrable, both in combat and motives. Who could tell what ticked behind those glasses?

* * *

The dungeon interior dripped, and squished underfoot. A tap from Shino's jeweled staff illuminated the spider's crypt - every corridor of earth spun with eight-legged weaver's white webbing. Long, endless corridors. 

"Are we there yet?" Haseo had given up all effort to walk upright. No. "Are we there yet?" No. " ... How about now?" Ovan didn't reply. He only took Haseo by the shoulder and motioned to shimmy along the wall - around a funnel of light cast from a break in the ceiling. "Don't ever step into the light," the man cautioned.

Haseo was _this close_ to pushing away and stomping all over one of those forbidden spotlights, he was so bored! "Shino, this place is a dud! We've gone down at least ten floors, and I haven't seen a monster for the last three!"

"Isn't it suspenseful?" she remarked. "The next one could be waiting just behind the corner."

Ovan offered his own wisdom. "There's more to this game than fighting monsters, Haseo. You should take the time to enjoy all this world offers."

"Like what?" Haseo asked, realizing a second too late he'd walked himself into a lecture. That cunning gleam was flooding Ovan's glasses!

"For example," the guildmaster began, "have you observed how you can interact with the floorplan?" The march paused for demonstration - Ovan reached overhead and seized a fistful of spiderweb, pulling and bundling the sticky net like candy floss. He scraped his glove clean and seized an imbedded root, jerking it from the wall and dropping a miniature cave-in of dirt.

"Look around, Haseo - you won't find any repetition to the pattern of roots, or the webs - every square of this dungeon was hand-crafted. The areas in the previous version were primitive by comparison: basic corridors and boxes that overlapped the same texture every five paces. Today, interaction is limitless."

"So, what - I could make a little avalanche and bury off the dungeon, or light the spiderwebs on fire and burn the whole place down?"

"Exactly!" Ovan's glasses beamed a delighted fire. (_Bloodlust, or my listening?_ Haseo worried.) "The World has no linearity to it, Haseo - no set objectives or storylines to guide you by the hand. It has only possibilities. Detail, and endless possibilities that allow you to approach the game however you please."

"Yeah? Well seems like everyone I know decided that player-killing the new guy was the way you play the game."

Shino's fingers touched his shoulder. "Pity them, Haseo. Intimidation, PKing - Those people only isolate themselves from the most delightful element of this world."

"Yeah? What's that?"

The steam gunner scholar and the fairy princess shared another in-joke smile, and Shino ruffled Haseo's hair. "The company of others, you silly goose!"

Ovan's observations continued as they trekked deeper. "Have you noticed that the floor here is mud? Look back and you'll see the footprints we've left. Or see how your shadow grows and falls as you pass each beam of light - it used to be the only silhouette players cast was a round disc at their feet." Haseo had scooped a spiderweb onto his own fingers, and now marveled at the polygonal netting he could stretch and squeeze and mold like a glassblowing artisan.

"This is insane," he whispered. How much code existed simply to track all the possible permutions of this web? What kind of CC-Corp supercomputers kept this fragile, variable-infested world from collapsing on itself? His head spun! "How do the system administrators keep this thing running?"

Ovan and Shino jerk-stopped, and the scholar's mouth parted into a thrilled grin. "That," he smiled, "is a question well worth some consideration. Another time, though. For now, we've achieved our destination."

The party rounded one final corner and light dawned over the crypt. They'd crossed a threshold into an unspoiled corridor of stone and sand, the earlier erosion warded off by the guardian masks and demon heads carved into the hallowed walls. Haseo squinted towards the light source - a sparkle of gold! The treasure room!

"There, you see," remarked Ovan, "the insurmountable distance has been traversed in spite of the grumbling of our flawed mental perceptions."

Haseo groaned. "In Japanese?"

"That wasn't so bad now, was it?"

Haseo crossed his arms and snorted, prepared to admit any fact but that.

Looking ahead, Haseo could make out a raised altar, and a round pedestal like an oil drum holding the shimmering treasure. "And no monsters? Too easy," he laughed, taking the lead once more. A snap of compressed air, and Haseo's screen flashed red. _Wha' the?_ A blowdart had caught his right leg; his displays blinked a warning for poison! Drawing daggers, Haseo spun around for his attacker. Another rush of air flew by, and another dart struck his character, forcing him to move again, but every jump he took from the line of fire only added another needle into his skin!

"SUVI LEI!" Merciful Shino tapped her staff into the ground, ending Haseo's rapidfire acupuncture treatment with a paralysis spell. "What a silly time to be dancing," she giggled.

"Uh, little help before the monster gets me?"

"Monster?" Shino mock-gasped. "Dear me, Ovan, I can't see any monsters at all! Where could they be?" The steam gunner played along and shrugged, and while Shino squinted and peered around, Haseo clued in.

"Okay, okay, okay - I get it. It's a dungeon trap." Now that he looked, the many masks carved over the walls were riddled with firing tubes. _Yeesh._ He checked the ground, noting the darker stone tiles interchanged with a lighter variety of which her currently stood upon. "The black squares fire the darts. Is that it?" Neither guildmaster spoke, but they smiled proudly. A complementary healing allowed Haseo to move on with carefully chosen steps. Ovan and Shino followed as far as the altar, leaving Haseo to ascend its stairs and retrieve the most sacred idol.

Haseo paused. "Wait. This can't be the treasure!"

Shino took a look at the pedistal and gasped. "Ovan, look!" The scholar was equally breathless. "I see it, Shino; the rumors were true! It does exist in this version!" She was melting and he was gushing poetry. "It's magnificent!" "It's splendid!" Haseo's face just drooped like mush. "A sight for sore eyes," Ovan whispered.

Haseo shook his head and double-checked, but the sacred idol remained a gold-plated, pot-bellied hipppotamus with a cereal-bowl haircut. "A golden grunty," Ovan beamed. "Isn't it wonderful?"

"It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen!" Haseo retched. "My God, my skin is going to melt off if I look at this any longer!"

"Don't worry," Shino informed him. "That only happens in the **Hidden, Nazi, Island** field on the Sigma server."

"And what's with this pile of sand here?"

"It's a mini-game," Shino explained. "You have to guess the treasure's weight, and replace it with an equal amount of sand. There's a bag over there on the floor."

It sounded stupid. "And what if I guess wrong?"

Shino and Ovan exchanged glances. "Don't."

Now a trifle creeped, Haseo decided that cynicism would be a poor guide with which to solve this puzzle. He thought back to science class. Gold was a light metal, right? He filled the bag halfway. Buut, then again, hippos were fat, weren't they? He added another third. On second thought, it looked like a baby. Babies didn't weigh much. He tossed out a handful. Come to think of it, shouldn't he add a little extra? It was ugly. Looking at the mirror every morning into those pudgy, anime eyes, and that balloon belly jiggling around your toes was bound to make you sob and eat ice cream on the couch all day.

In the end, Haseo had trouble closing the drawstrings. Now came the coup de grace. Licking his lips, crouching low to the pedistal, reaching his fingers ever so close to the prize, Haseo swapped grunty for sand. Perfect! You couldn't have flicked a lightswitch any faster. "Hey, I got it!" It needed two hands to carry, but the statue wasn't too heavy. "Ovan, Shino, I - " Turning around he saw two faces raised with concern. "Haseo ..."

Stones were scraping together at his back. Very reluctantly, Haseo turned around, offering a little-too-late 'oops' while the stone pedistal sank like a button under its newfound weight, stopping with a locking _click._

The entire temple trembled; dust and pebbles shook the air. Ovan muttered to himself, but dutifully reloaded his shotgun. Shino gripped her Harvest's wand in both hands like a bowstaff, scanning for the attack. Haseo, very much in need of a comfort doll, squeezed the golden grunty to his chest.

"And now we run," Ovan sighed. A rock landing next to Haseo's foot made for a nice starting whistle. The multi-weapon bolted past his party members into the hall of masks, shooting himself full of darts in his mindless escape.

Ovan and Shino obeyed a different instinct, pressing their backs together and sidestepping through the firing squad with matched steps. Shino twirled and juked her staff like a lightsaber, catching and ricocheting every poison needle fired her way, while Ovan's rapidfire shots blasted each blowdart in midair. Behind them, the altar splintered and cracked like delicate ice, collapsing into abyss. Brick by brick the temple crumbled, hot in pursuit.

Up ahead, Haseo busied himself in another hopping dance, trying to dodge all the falling rocks while pulling the poisoned porcupine quills from his butt. "This is all your fault, you bulemic little jerkwad," and he throttled the golden grunty. He wanted to throw it away except it made such a convenient safety helmet. Dust blasted his vision, but he could make out the halos of light Ovan forbid him to enter. He ran across each one anyhow, screaming as rows of spikes exploded from the walls, floors and ceiling, forcing him into improvised contortions, ducks and bunny hops.

_"Haseo!"_ shouted Shino, _"Wait for us, Haseo!"_

Far back, but gaining ground, Shino slipped around the barricades Haseo had released, while Ovan had to blast through the each row of spiked prison bars to admit his left pillar of an arm. The darkness nipping their heels paused for no obstacle. "Go on ahead," Ovan said to Shino, silencing her protests. "Before he sets off any more traps and kills himself!"

Further up, solo Haseo barreled ahead: tangled in cobwebs, stuck full of darts and mindless of all the rigged floor panels he mashed underfoot. He tripped, and the wire snagged by his ankle drove splinters through the dry earth. The ground past his knees fell in a wave, and Haseo wobbled at the pit's edge, dribbling unlucky pebbles into the deep he would quickly join.

Shino caught his shoulders and yanked him into her chest. "Are you all right?"

_Heavenly ..._ But Haseo could see no bottom to the gap he'd created. "How do we get across, that's gotta be ten meters!"

Shino assessed the trap: the pit left them a small patch of land before a stone archway, slowly shrinking as a slab of granite rumbled for the floor. Dropping Haseo, she took a running start and leapt. For a frozen moment, the black wings across her back buzzed with hummingbird speed, and Haseo stared stupidly, never more convinced he'd found an angel.

Shino landed in a roll and threw herself into the archway, pushing back at the lowering door. "Haseo, jump! I can't ..." Her arms strained, and actually held off the doom, but her petite Harvest frame couldn't brace such a load for long.

Haseo peered into the bottomless deep. Everything he saw, The World projected in first-person. What roller coaster horrors would rush his brain if he missed? "I ..." The controller fell from his shaking palms. "I can't ..."

Armored footthuds crashed at his back. "Haseo! Move!" He paled. The voice was Ovan's, but the sight made Haseo's eyes water: The panting gunman charged a few paces, stumbled; stabbed his casket-bound arm into the soil like a crutch while he caught his breath. Sweat dripped down his chin and breath wheezed out his throat. Meeting terrified eyes, the old man willed his character to move, rushing with right shoulder forward while his dead left arm dug a trench through the ground. He was going to try and jump but - oh, what ungodly mirror had twisted such a dark reflection? - the invincible guildmaster was _limping_: crash-drag, crash-dragging himself through the dirt like a wounded beast. And with a paralyzed multi-weapon in his path, the ruined scholar had to stop entirely.

"Ovan ..."

"Haseo! Jump!"

He hid his face. "It's too far! I can't do it!"

Shino dropped to her knees, the stone half-down. "Hurry ..."

"I'm sorry," Haseo whimpered. "I'm -"

The devouring maw was gaining. Ovan cursed. "No time." Snatching Haseo by the collar with his one functional arm, Ovan spun like a discus athlete and chucked the boy over the gap and into the dirt.

"Crawl through ... Haseo." Shino's stomach pressed into her knees. "Hold it ... from the other side." He squeezed through the gap like a worm but couldn't wrap his mind around further orders. Oh God, he'd just killed Ovan - the man couldn't run; how could he jump across!?

Shino and Ovan looked to each other - crumbling ground at his back; a falling door at hers; a chasm in between, and hysteric smiles over their sweaty faces. "Just like the old times," she called. "Remember that Carmina Gadelica field?"

He cracked a grin. "**Abysmal, Hopeless, Nothingness.** Angle jump?" "Angle jump," she confirmed.

They sprinted for each other, making diagonal runs at the dungeon walls. They leapt, and kicked their heels off the wall to spring for each other over the pit. Ovan reached out his hand, Shino grabbed his wrist, and with another humming tremble from her wings she flung the gunner over the pit with a discus toss of her own. He didn't stop once - Ovan hit the ground, rolled through the archway like a log, and jammed his casket into the remaining gap. The hollow iron whined and contorted under the press.

"Help me up," he ordered Haseo, and once his feet could dig into the ground and his hand could grip his impromptu wedge, Ovan bellowed and pried the stone up and away.

Shino rolled through with fairy nimbleness. Ovan let the door fall with a final thud. All three of them collapsed and panted there a moment while their stamina bars refilled. "Is ... is that ... all?" Haseo panted.

An earthquake more violent and brutal than anything before answered on behalf of the giant stone boulder rolling towards the party. Haseo screamed and hid. Ovan stood up. Shino stood with him. A sphere of light was expanding from his gun barrel, a wave of energy was rolling down her staff. They braced, aimed and loosed the spiraling charge shots into the coming doom.

Haseo's controller twitched for every pebble that plinked over his avatar, but Ovan spared them the worst of the debris - Haseo guarded at his feet, Shino huddled to his chest, his crippled left arm presented as a shield to the onslaught.

* * *

"You guys've played this game for a while, haven't you?" 

"A while," Ovan answered, offering nothing definite - the standard Twilight Brigade answer. Traversing the top level of the dungeon once more, the awaiting sunlight spread a jolly gleam over the guildmaster's glasses. The sudden light only added to Haseo's dizzy spell and his character wobbled.

"Yeah, but you've got this game all mapped out - all those fancy glitch jumps and special attacks!"

"You'll learn those for yourself, one day," Ovan smiled. "Every day sees you growing stronger, Haseo."

"Whatever," he shrugged, playing it cool while he stole another glance at Ovan's mangled left arm. Their tattered costumes had sown together under Shino's healing spells, but the casket retained its dents and gouges from the escape. A familiar chant rose in his ear - _hacked, hacked, hacked_ - but why on earth would Ovan modify his character to carry such a burden?

His run stamina bled dry in seconds, his jump distance halved from weight, and his one-handed carrying capacity automatically barred him from the truly powerful, two-handed weaponry. The man made a good show of hiding his limp at walking speed, but after seeing Ovan force himself through the dungeon, Haseo could pick it up: that slow response from his left leg while it gathered the strength to propel a useless metal coffin. The scholar was a cripple.

Shino interrupted his thoughts. "I was saying: what will you do with the treasure, Haseo?"

"Huh?" Hard to concentrate. All that dungeon crawling had left his eyes bleary and his head spinning. But miracle of miracles, after all that mindless running and jumping he still held the rare and hideous golden grunty to his chest like a plush doll. "I dunno. Why don't you keep it? Here."

"Oh, Haseo, I couldn't," she said, forcing the gift away.

"Take it," he insisted; bold and senseless in his vertigo, he added, "you can turn it into a prince."

"Eh?" Dark and inward Haseo slapped himself, compounding his headache.

"I mean, since it's so ugly and all it's uh, like a frog." She still wasn't getting it. "The frog prince?" Nope. "You know, the princess, she took the frog and changed him into a prince with a ... a k-" He couldn't force out the forbidden word, so he just shoved the idol into her hands. "Look, it's ugly and you like it more than I do. Keep it!"

Shino gave another of her mischievous smiles. "All right, Haseo. You know, I think I'll set it up at our guild hall. That way we can look at him all the time."

Haseo twitched. "Give it back."

"Finders keepers," she sing-songed, and Haseo had to give up. His male mind had been fantasizing of a thank-you hug, but her smile would have to do.

"Hey, I just thought of something," Haseo added as they stepped into the jungle, "don't these bigger dungeons usually have a boss monster at the end?" He made a quick double-take. "Whoa, did we switch fields or something?"

The many branching jungle paths had compressed themselves into a circular arena in their absence. The dungeon entrance slammed shut at their backs; a ring of trees barred escape to the Chaos Gate, and a towering, hooded skyscraper of a cobra reared its coiled neck into the air for battle.

"Snakes," Haseo groaned. "It had to be snakes."

Crippled Ovan locked his rifle into rapid fire and rattled off a scattershot of explosives around the serpent's head. "Level 80!" At that strength, even Ovan's attacks would be down to frustrating chip shots! The cobra snorted off this first round like a cloud of nuissant mosquitos and responded by throwing its tail down like a guillotine.

The party dodged, but when the dust settled, Haseo found himself alone, with a massive scale wall blocking him from Ovan and Shino. The gunner and the Harvest were peppering the slithering titan with shots and spells, but the boss cobra ignored the insect stings, much preferring the black, multi-weapon morsel in its tendrils. Haseo squeaked, weaving left and right, but the monster pursued with an auto-lock, snapping at him, and squeezing the boy's heart with the worst terrors a 3D, first-perspective virtual reality could scare up.

A close lunge threw Haseo against the arena walls. Pinned! The cobra raised its head for a final strike, and Haseo could see the poison dribbling from its mammoth-tusk fangs. His heart drummed through his ears, summoning the dizzy spells with a vengeange. The last he remembered was raising his daggers - useless, little level 20 daggers against the reptile horror speeding for his face like a piston.

Then it all went black.

_Ba-dub._

* * *

When he awoke, Haseo was a perspiring mush slumped back in his bedroom chair; once he readjusted the face-mounted display goggles, his character was staring into the green jungle canopy. Shino was bent over and checking his connection. "Haseo?" 

"... yeah?" He sat up, a great relief to her. Ovan stood at a distance, face tight and neutral behind orange glasses. A reptilian skull and its trailing column of spine dwarfed even the tall guildmaster. "Hey, you guys got it," Haseo exclaimed.

Now the smile on Shino's face dimmed. She wrung her hands, seeking for words to speak, but Ovan pinned his good hand over her shoulder and spared the trouble. "_You_ got it, Haseo."

"Huh?"

"You scored a critical hit," Ovan explained quickly. "Well done."

"How do you feel, Haseo? Are you hurt? Bleeding?"

_Huh?_ Yeah, he'd fainted, or something, but what made Shino jump to that conclusion? For all they knew, his PC wipe-out could have been him leaving for the bathroom. "Fine ... I guess." Actually, his headache had cleared up - he felt like a hundred million yen! And he'd grown - level 25 in one steroid-boosted shot! New items appeared in his inventory: Poison Fang Daggers - spoils of victory, apparently. "Yeah, I'm perfect!"

Ovan nodded. "I think we've done enough adventuring for today. Haseo, you should log out. There's school tomorrow, isn't there?"

When they returned to Mac Anu, the root town had shifted to evening ambiance: moonlight, and the faint glow of stars over the desert city. Which was strange, considering it was five o'clock and sunny outside Haseo's room. _Don't these servers follow Japan time?_ "And where is everybody?" _body, body body._ Haseo's exclamation echoed down the street. Sure, one or two players wove around drunkenly and knocked into walls, but the hub city was otherwise deserted!

"There must be a special event on the Omega server," Ovan offered quickly.

"You should go now," Shino urged.

"Hey, I'm good for another run!"

Ovan clapped his back, a rare gesture of acceptance. "Part of becoming stronger is knowing how to pace yourself, Haseo."

"Go on," Shino smiled. "We'll organize activities for tomorrow and contact you."

"Well ... all right." The guildmasters even escorted him to the Chaos Gate - that was new. Twilight Brigade meetings usually ended with everyone scattering, not clinging at one another's shoulders like a security detachment.

"Hey, Ovan," Haseo asked, "Is your ... you know, okay?" Gating back to root towns automatically healed all battle damage, but that left arm was still crumpled like a soda can. Haseo could hear a steady _lub, lub, lub_ beat against the hollow drum, like drops of oil (_or blood?_ he freaked.)

"Hmm?" The scholar had been busy scanning the empty streets. "Oh, that. No worries." Shino's eyes were also darting quickly.

"You sure?" Haseo checked. The oil drops were increasing in tempo, coming in heartbeat pairs now. _lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub._

"Positive," Ovan affirmed.

_lubdub lubdub lubdub BANG!_ The giant padlock shivered in its hinge like teeth. Ovan slapped his hand over it. "Until tomorrow, Haseo." The multi-weapon gave one final odd look before finally conceding. "Umm. Okay... See ya." A sphere of blue energy began to dissolve and collect his avatar.

Ovan nodded farewell. Shino waved to him. "Goodnight, Haseo!"

The moment Haseo disappeared, the guildmasters cut their smiles, turning and walking off at a hurried pace.

"You're fine?" Shino confirmed.

"The code's degraded slightly. Nothing I can't edit at home. I'll be fine." The pulses had died off, but Ovan hadn't removed his hand from the lock since. He had to repeat himself to convince her. "I'll be fine."

Critical eyes surveyed the ghost town: the glitched aftermath of Haseo's strike, apparently. Theirs were the only footclops down the cobblestone paths.

"Back in the boss arena, did Haseo awaken?"

Ovan grunted negative. "No, not fully - but he was able to access its power momentarily." It was almost unbelievable! "They boy's only played several weeks; he can barely defend himself, but he's already mastered this ... this reflex control."

"He fainted back there," Shino reminded him.

"It was a stressful moment," Ovan rebutted. "Look at how long he's suppressed it until now. _I_ can't even -" The scholar trailed off.

"Go on, finish your thought."

Off-line, Ovan's hair prickled, hit by a cold aura. In The World, a digital breeze flapped the sleeves of his scarf and ruffled Shino's hair - the only perceptible aftershock rippling out from a meteor impact of massive data. "She's here," he whispered. "Keep walking."

The scholar and the sprite continued silently up the empty streets, halting for the cross-armed shadow stretching into their path. "How predictable," sneered the voice at the silhouette's origin. "You know, when children break something valuable, they have the intelligence to at least run away and play innocent. But you two," she tssked, "always admiring your handiwork."

The stranger waltzed into the light, (chest first): a luscious, long-legged character that held herself stern and serious, unfazed by her gorgeously naked body. A red bikini, straining at the seams to contain her mass, was all the clothing her bare body wore; otherwise, she accessorized in a mess of conflicting fetish gear like an athlete stamped with multiple logos for product endorsement. Bubblegum pink pigtails accounted for the Lolita demographic, while her legs were strapped tight with leather bondage belts. Her tiny nose balanced a coy librarian's spectacles; her hands, a bunny girl's white gloves. Snaking down her neck was an office lady's collar and necktie, very much in danger of being swallowed down the bottomless abyss that was her cleavage.

These encounters always brought such conflict - to respect the authority of her office, and the seriousness of her face, or to break into fits of giggles over this little girl who'd doused herself with mommy's perfume and pearls, smeared on clownish lipstick and declared herself 'pretty'.

"Administrator Pi!" and the smile on Ovan's face worked hard to remain serious, "what a surprise to find you in this district, considering the lack of red lights."

Shino was quick to step in. "Ovan," she scolded with a grin, "We should address Administrative _Assistant_ Pi by her proper title. It wouldn't do to name the peon above her station and tease her ego; why, her head's sure to swell up with hot air!"

"No chance of that," Ovan returned. "There's a blockage at her chest."

The player named Pi kept her face rock-steady, but her eyes snuck a confused glance down at her torso (or perhaps she was hoping to look at her toes - both attempts would have yielded the same sight), then screwed her face into a taskmaster's sneer. "We could delete your accounts on whim. Count your blessings System Administration is still willing to talk matters over."

"Of course," Shino nodded, curtseying with mock respect. "To what do we owe the company of Yata's errand girl?"

"If you've come seeking another fight, I am always ready to indulge your masochism," Ovan added, giving his trusty left arm a pat.

Pi snorted and spoke down her nose. "You play such convincing fools. Four-thousand players booted off Japan's Delta server? An entire root town emptied? Really, Ovan - did you think you'd get away unnoticed?"

For one brief moment the guildmasters were left stupid and speechless. They'd been found out. Shino swam in distress - their accounts would be suspended, their guild decommissioned; Haseo imprisoned for testing; _oh Haseo! _

Ovan's hand brushed her own, drawing her panic to his eyes: focused, collected, masked. _Be steady_, they whispered, while turning to confrontation. "A weighty accusation, Administrative Assistant. Are you confident my character is to blame?"

Pi narrowed her eyes. "Who else fits the bill? Lord Yata has been highly patient with you and your guild, but don't think he'll tolerate another incident like this!"

"Hmph." A non-committal grunt was Ovan's only response, but at his side, Shino could see the smile he worked hard to suppress, the smile that eased her beating heart. _Haseo..._ had he tapped into such vast power so easily, and left sysadmin none the wiser? The smile on Ovan's face was a proud, fatherly grin.

"You have my sincerest apologies, Administrative Assistant." Now, they had only role-play, and Ovan to present the part of the unrepentant anarchist. The final, missing member of their party would remain hidden. "As you undoubtably know," he droned on, "the Twilight Brigade has only the greater good of the system in its intentions. But perhaps I have been ... overzealous with my _personal_ capabilities. Today's incident will not be repeated."

A self-satisfied nod. "Lord Yata will be pleased with your promised docility, guildmaster."

She made it all too easy to snatch and twist her language. "_Lord Yata?_" Ovan repeated mockingly. "My, such deference! Tell me," and the scholar took a challenging step forward, "is the puppet master watching us right now? Is the tyrant breathing over your shoulder to keep you in line? Or has his lapdog finally learned to fetch and beg?"

Pi's wrath was swift. "You shut your - "

"It must be so frustrating -" Shino interrupted, "- a woman of your potential, suffering and sniveling under such a taskmaster."

Ovan agreed. "There's no reason to prolonge such misery, Pi. When you choose to resign, there is a home awaiting you with the Twilight Brigade."

The sex-goddess had never heard a more ridiculous joke. "Join the Brigade? Join the crippled schoolmaster and his class of misfits!?" A nasty glimmer twinkled over her secretary lenses; Pi swept her arms open - and Ovan had to grab Shino by the arm to steady her against the hurricane winds unleashed. Streetlamps popped, windows twitched into spiderwebs, and Pi's shadow crawled up the cobblestones for the guildmasters, her pigtails bobbing with the rhythmic flap of wings.

"Join you!?" Pi laughed. "Why, pray tell, would I give up all this delicious power?"

A gleam of madness ruled her eyes, but the woman's next move was interrupted by a mail delivery chime. Pi woke as from a trance - panting; eyes darting back and forth, startled and trying to assess time lost to a blackout. Her pupils then scanned up and down, reading otherworldly columns of text.

"Ah," Shino smiled, eager to prove undaunted, "That must be your master, calling you home with flash mail."

Ovan scoffed. "Flash mail? When Yata wants his lackey's attention he uses Crash mail."

Shino played along. "Crash mail?"

"He throws his coffee cup at her."

Pi snapped. "It was only styrofoam!" She woke again, blushed and slapped her mouth shut. _Had she really ..._ She managed another recovery, and with a freshly renewed scowl, warned them: "We're watching you, Ovan. Don't think there won't be consequences!"

Role-play returned, Shino thought. Pi's hand clutched her chest as if holding in a wound, while her knees shook from even that minimal burst of power.

Against the breathy outrage, Ovan remained the ideal gentleman, bowing his head and teasing her with civility. "Of course, Administrative Assistant. Please, don't let us keep you - you have coffee to purchase, and donuts to deliver. Run along, then."

Pi left them with a one-fingered gesture and gated out. "I pity her, sometimes," Shino commented.

"She's a sysadmin hitwoman, payed to harass players," Ovan snorted. "So don't."

To next topic, then. "Is he here?"

"Oh yes," Ovan grumbled. "After her little show-off, thankfully. _Come on out, Haseo!_"

Across the street, a mop of white hair bobbed up from behind a wayward barrel. "But how'd you -?"

"The town is deserted, so it's no trouble to hear your footsteps against the cobblestones. And from where you were hiding, the streetlamps cast your shadow rather far, don't they?"

Haseo consulted the black taffy stretching from his feet, both surprised and ashamed at its obvious length. "Ovan, I - "

"- should be paying closer attention to your surroundings the next time you try to spy on someone! Log off, Haseo. Now." He was rightly furious, Shino thought. Today's talks on shadows, footprints, and nuances had obviously gone to waste. Worse, one stupid blunder and Yata would have known everything...

Haseo's mouth quivered, his eyes pleaded for her to intercede. Shino looked away. The boy hung his head. "... right."

Ovan watched their protegee slump away - a miserable, shriveling shadow. He did not call out until the teen neared a corner. "Haseo!" The boy spun; a hopeful, puppy-dog look in his eyes.

"The instruction manual is manna from Heaven," Ovan smiled. "Take it in - read the section on stealth action if you want to catch me off guard."

His face lifted like a sun; Shino couldn't help but smile herself, drawing on Haseo's rekindled hopes. The multi-weapon bobbed his head, and ducked the corner with an energized run.

After all that strain, Ovan was looking forward to logging off as well. "Goodnight," he nodded, which set Shino off with a mischievous smile. "Don't speak too soon," she winked.

The scholar lifted an intrigued eyebrow, but she left him hanging, offering a little flutter of fingers before dissolving off-line.

* * *

Crouched up on his bed under the lampglow from his headboard: at any other time, Haseo Kiyoshi would have been catching up on his neglected studies with some last-minute textbook cramming. Tonight, his choice of ignored literature was a thin, stapled booklet that might have slid into his pocket. _The World R:2. Instruction Manual. _

R:2. Right, something had gone screwy with Ovan's much-hailed 'older version'. CC-Corp headquarters had burned down after an electrical fire - that much he'd skimmed off newspaper headlines. 

Haseo flipped through, looking for interesting pictures (maybe Shino's character model was in here?), and finally settled for reading cover-to-cover. The fine print inside caught his interest with it's bolded lettering.

**HEALTH AND EPILEPSY WARNING **

Some small number of people - already physically predisposed to epileptic seizures - are known to have experienced dizziness, blurred vision, disorientation, eye or muscle twitches, involuntary movement or convulsion andlossofconsciousness**while playing interactive games similar to, but not including "The World R:2". The skilled and highly-experienced legal team of CC-Corporation advises that if you or anyone in your family has ever had symptoms related to epilepsy when exposed to flashing lights, consult your doctor prior to using any interactive game. **

Thank you, and enjoy your stay in "The World" - a dazzling, twilight fantasy of no legally-proven health detriments! 

He was squinting over the tinier fonts when an angry thrust slammed his bedroom door into the wall. Haseo jumped and shoved the manual under his pillow. "Um ..."

His mother just looked down on him from the doorway; he must have appeared like a toad, hunched over in the dim light. "I was just ..." but his math textbooks were on the other side of the room. He couldn't even give her a good lie. He shriveled, and braced for the lecture on 'making good use of your time'.

She just stepped through his private space, up to the bed and removed the booklet. The World R:2. Her eyes dropped from the manual to her son, and Haseo almost wished she would hide her eyes behind glasses - miserable eyes, weary with life and this bundle of disappointments. He pulled up his sheets, feeling naked under her cold, expecting stare.

"Just go to sleep," she whispered with the last of her strength. "It's the one intelligent thing you could do with your life." She slammed the door on her way out.

Even with the lights off it wasn't dark enough; Haseo smothered his face into the pillow and pulled the bedsheets over his head, shutting himself in his cocoon. It took ten minutes to release all his muffled tears into the fabric. _stupid jerk can't tell me what to do! now Ovan's gonna be pissed! hateher! Ihateher! Ihateher! _

She wasn't like that. His black thoughts cleared a little, and his sniffles held while he reflected on that reservoir of patience, grace, kindness. She had a smile for everyone, _but she smiles at me differently, doesn't she?_ He was sure of it. God, he'd said such stupid things in front of her ... but she toughed it out, right? He wiped his eyes clean, comforted with this conclusion: _Shino smiled at me_. The thought alone made him lift his lips. 

He fell asleep with an ache in his chest, and a lonesome dream in his heart. _A white angel in the darkness._

* * *

A few final keystrokes logged Ovan out of The World. To onlookers, a sphere of fairy's dust wrapped over the scholar and removed him from existance. To his player, the globe was a shuttle, fired like a bullet through a high-speed tunnel of glowing rings. The velocity pressed at his avatar, red-hot with friction like a spacecraft plummeting for earth; cracks and splinters spread over his clothing until the tugging g-forces stripped the shell away in tiny scales. 

His vest and scarf shattered from above cheap jeans and a flannel shirt. His blue hair charred to black, but lost none of it's disorder while it grew past his neck. The orange headlamps over his eyes melted down and spread into a bulky VR headset strapped over his face and ears. The iron casket was the last to disappear, and it did not burn away: the cylinder shrunk, and bent at the middle to produce an elbow; fingers and a palm bulged out the tip, while the metal melted and squeezed to fit his bone structure like tightly wound bandages. The silver fluid slithered into his pores.

The shuttle stopped roughly - but not painfully - dropping him in a cushioned chair before a busy computer terminal. Hands peeled off the game controller to pry the sweaty FMD from his face. His fingers groped the desk blindly for a moment, then fished up his glasses, his real glasses - boring, black and square rimmed. Hardly anything intimidating or fascinating.

Ovan had hung up his costume; now he was just Hideki - plain and tall, another oyster on a seabed of computer techs. He sighed a little, having to give up thrills for an ordinary adventure. This apartment was his guild hall, and it had a marvelous view of the city; it held his library, and the freshwater blast of open air through the windows. _Mmm... _

Best of all, this world didn't hurt. As was his routine, Hideki stretched and flexed every joint in his left arm, massaging out the leftover pins and needles. He moved a little faster this time - there was work to be done.

In about an hour, his apartment's cleanliness was polarized: pots and pans and spilled spices cluttering his kitchenette; pasta and French bread arranged with meticulate neatness on the tablecloth. _Dinner for Two_ was his portrait, and the final brushstroke it required was a touch of candlelight. He was swiping through his matchbook when a knock startled him, and made him burn his fingers. His gangly legs covered the distance to the front door like a stilt walker. Height was a trait Hideki enjoyed under all his aliases.

His visitor was tiny against her suitcase - its wheels had broke, and hefting the load in her arms had left the woman panting under her business suit.

She was so small; stunted perhaps, as if her body had to conserve its height, its weight, even the colour in her skin to hold together. Blue veins trailed up her thin wrists, and her hair curled in messy little twists. At the same time, she had an energy in her smile, a tiny sun bundled up and concentrated in her blush: an embraceable, heavenly blaze.

"Forgive me," she puffed, breathless with excitement. "Have I kept you waiting?"

Hideki waved off her apology with a smile. "Yes, but just a little bit." Without another thought he scooped her into his arms and spun her over the threshold; she giggled while her heels flew off her feet; they twirled in their celebration dance until his head bonked the light fixture.

"OW!" "Whoa," "Ow, ow -" "You all right?" "ah, yeah -" "not bleeding?" "I'm good" "you sure?" She bent his head down to check the tender spot.

"I'll be fine," he winced. And he smiled. "I have you, don't I?"

"Oh you!" That earned him a nuzzle.

"Welcome home, Ms. Nanao."

He bent to touch her mouth with a kiss, and she pulled him in tight, and squeezed their matching hands: fingers intertwined with bands of gold.

* * *


	3. The Darkness of the Serpent's Den

Nothing soothed Pi's temper like a good melee fight. Her current victim was a Brumbarr - which, she supposed was what one would call an eight-foot, upright polar bear with scissorhand claws. Said impaling devices currently lunged for her throat. She twisted away, crushed the ursine wrist in her bare hands and flipped the monster over her shoulder, hammering its HP down to zero and dashing the Brumbarr into digital confetti.

That one earned her level 75 - not too shabby. The hero-worshiping newbs she'd collected on this dungeon run seemed to agree, gasping and chittering amongst themselves in English.

"Whaa, super strong!"  
"One-hit KO!"  
"Awesome!"

The tallest of the group - a cynical-eyed Blade with an oversized halberd - felt differently. "Of course she's tough - CC-Corp dog!" Pi's attention perked. This one obviously assumed bilingualism was no prerequisite for company employment. Kneeling, she pretended to sift through the monster's dropped items while dialing her headset's volume to max.

"Wake up, you guys," the blade-user chided. "An all red costume? That's sysadmin colouring! And they all hack their characters super-strong so they can bully us around, the lousy - "

Pi's fingers in his face terminated that remark. The cocky English boy freaked and dropped his meat-cleaver sword to claw at the suffocating vicegrip, so easily forgetting that she'd just chucked a bear over her shoulder. Gutter trash weasels like this lifted like rag dolls.

His skull shattered against the dungeon wall. Once, twice, three times - Pi mashed the attack button a little harder each time; red damage points flew off the punk's head like stone chippings. She didn't stop until his PKed corpse withered to grayscale and disintegrated through her fingers. Now she had the full attention of her little admirers.

"Anyone else wanna call me a god-damn cheater?"

Pi very quickly found herself alone.

_Hmph!_ Their loss - that last monster had put her in a good mood; she'd actually felt like sharing the dungeon's end-treasure with those tag-along leeches.

The administrative assistant ripped into the final treasure chest like a child clawing through a cereal box, tossing out the crusty common pieces (helmet, shield, katana ...), and even flinging the semi-rare marshmallow bits over her shoulder. (Punching daggers, magic wand and ninja stars all joined the garbage pile.) All she wanted was the one-of-a-kind prize at the very bottom.

_A Risky Coffee health drink..._ Bah! Even that rare items made for a sock-and-underwear Christmas! That was the annoying part about playing a hand-to-hand combat specialist: so few of the treasure items applied to kick-boxers and fist-fighters. _Ah well _- Pi gathered up the loot anyhow - selling all this useless crap was making her rich! Soon, she could buy those dreamy brass knuckles with the poison-tipped spikes she fancied, and she'd climb one rung higher on her route to invincibility. Soon, she'd have the strength, the speed of earth-shattering lightning, and she'd PK that whackjob Ovan before he could even push a button to block! And when he logged back on, she'd kill him again, and again! _The Avenger, the Ender!_ Her titles of respect would roll back in cheering waves! That aught to give the water-cooler snobs something new to yap about!

Reveling in fantasies of the future made Pi mindful of time. Her in-game PC froze momentarily while, off-line, on the twentieth floor of CC-Corp Japan, she lifted the FMD visor for a peek at her watch. _Ten after twelve!_ Pi reanimated with a curse before gating out to Mac Anu root town. She was late for her report!

She had to ignore the catcalls and wolf-whistles her body measurements normally attracted (though she did record screenshots for her list of balls to break later), bouncing over to the Chaos Gate at max speed. A smug little warlock boy in a red, double-breasted overcoat awaited her arrival, leaning up against the doorway. "Little sissy's la-ate," he sing-songed, flicking the know-it-all blonde bangs from his face.

"Shove it, Reki!" The brat was getting his e-mail spammed the second this was over! The teleporter program registered her unique ID signature and offered an extended range of warp possibilities. Pi keyed in the confidential passwords. **Admin Server: Serpent, Of, Lore. **

When the teleportation sphere dissolved, so did her last glimpse of light. Admin areas were supposed to be lifeless as empty cubicles - the better to concentrate on work, my dear - snowstorm white or basic black, depending on the owner's preferred definition of vacuum. But this holy-of-holies had been a custom commission for the graphics department: torchlight gloom, ominous Roman pillars, and regal, carpeted pathways like trails of blood. The Serpent even came with background music: the thump of tribal drums and the ohmming of choral baritones to complete the atmosphere of a hallowed temple of the ancients. God, this place creeped her out!

Of course, chickening out now meant she'd have to debrief IRL, in his office. In The World, she could at least claim equality. Though dimly lit, her shadow fed off even the smallest flicker of torchlight and spread its wings over the floor, a mighty darkness. _Right!_ Head high, arms swinging, she marched for the black inner sanctum. The golden double doors opened at her approach.

**"You're late,"** boomed the voice of judgment, commanding the doors to slam and seal Pi in abyss. **"Running through another dungeon, perhaps? Escaping into a dazzling fantasy adventure, Reiko?"**

Pi flinched. She hated when he broke role-play like that! Hands on hips, she tossed her head-tails and stuck to her adamantium girl-power persona. "I was following up on a complaint in one of the low-level fields," she lied - brazenly, and with her chin up. "Everything checks out normal," she finished, crossing her arms and challenging the darkness to refute that.

The flick of a paper fan - _openshut_, parchment ruffling like a wing - sounded to Pi more like the swish of an axe, the drop of a guillotine. **"How wonderful."** Sarcasm oozed through the voice like nectar crushed from a fruit. **"Because playing games during your work hours would be equivalent to stealing, would it not?"** The fan flicked _openshut_ once more while Pi clenched her fists and looked away.

**"Ah, but I forget - you're untouchable. How very fortunate of you to have such an infulential brother dominating the CC-Corporation." **

Pi raised her head to snap a second too late. The fan clamped shut, ordering the temple to reveal its ancient technology. The curses she had ready drowned under the clockwork gears and electric dynamos throwing the room into motion, reducing her to a mouse caught in an enormous, mechanized trap. Dark stone walls lit up like circuitboards as green light slithered up the concealed energy conduits. Pi could now see the short flight of stairs leading to a raised altar, and the electric mural encompassing the entire back wall - _Urobos_, the serpent devouring its own tail; symbol of eternity.

And amid the blasts of light and the shine of gold, Chief Administrator Yata descended from the abysmal sky, held aloft on a golden pedestal that suspended his radiant body like a sun on high. His PC shone as an exhaltation to the majesty of mankind - a beautiful, bronzed god sculpted into muscular perfection, a robe of the finest crimson silk draped over his shoulder. Greater than Adonis, lover to a god; mightier than Heracles, son of a god.

But his face - blonde hair skinned close to his skull; spectacles glowing hellfire; chin and forehead branded with occult tattoos - his face so hard with displeasure reminded Pi that this was no second coming of Christ - this was Zeus, the lawmaker, descending on his thundercloud with the wrath of the heavens.

"I'm afraid I'll never comprehend your obsession with this manual leveling," Yata hemmed, flicking his bladed fan. "You are a representative of the CC-Corporation, and my department. If you need more power, raise your stats in the character editor and save me the embarrassment of employing such a weakling."

"I don't need anyone's help," she hissed. The gold and neon glow had fed her anger, and the shadow growing from her feet spread over the circuit-board walls like black ink.

"Hmm, of course," Yata purred, bored and busying himself with the band of gold over his wrist. Pi's arms suddenly jerked to her sides; her entire body froze up. She wiggled the thumb-stick, she mashed every button, but the controller lay dead in her hands. _Concentrate!_ she hissed, matching Yata's hateful stare even while her heels lifted off the floor. Against the wall, the spectacle played more viciously - her winged shadow squirming and throttled in a chokehold.

"Look at you," Yata hissed, tattoos glowing like hot coals. "Five seconds and you've already lost your nerve." Disgusted with further spectacle, his fan sliced the air, dropping his assistant to the floor.

"To business," he boomed. "Did you deliver the warning to Ovan?"

"I did," Pi whispered. On the wall, her shadow shivered in a heap.

Yata leaned forward. "And?"

She bit her lip, taking her time on this one. "I think he bought it. ... No, I'm sure he did! But, it was strange - I mean, the way he had to fight that smile down, he genuinely seemed to react as if it was his group that caused the system glitch."

"Curious," Yata said without meaning it. "No matter. So long as his attention is deflected, our cause has succeeded." Light flashed over the administrator's spectacles - unlike that nutjob Ovan, whose glasses served to mask his face, Yata's worked as amplifiers, drilling his scowls and leers into memory.

"You've done well, Reiko. Despite last night's ... hiccup, Project G.U. has taken a promising step forward. Just imagine: a new world. An untainted world."

"Yes sir," Pi nodded, feeling this was her chance to escape. "Will that be all? Anything else?"

God-like Yata fixed her one last scowl from his throne. "Yes! Check your flash mail, woman! I've paged you three times and I still haven't gotten my coffee!"

_Ulp!_ "On it, sir." She could squeeze one more dungeon run before lunch if she hurried.

"And have you picked up my laundry yet?"

_Damn it!_ Level 76 was getting so far away! "Ahh, not yet ..."

A rare, delighted smile. "Well then, it looks like you have a special event to clear."

Pi willed her chin up and back straight while she exited. Her clenched fists would have drawn blood through her palms had this been reality. Yata never left his golden pedistal, but she could sense him hovering over her shoulder, slamming the doors on her heel. She just kept moving, stuffing down her rage for a safer field. For a field without eyes.

Because it wasn't dim lighting that accounted for the temple's darkness. The pillars, the stone walls - every polygon was saturated by a black shadow swelling out from her Lord's feet: undulating at its borders like the flap of robes; pulsing rhythmically with the heartbeat of living flesh.  
**

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End file.
